Like many small New England cities, Fitchburg rose up around a river and the mills it powered. And it struggled after the mills began closing in the mid- to late 20th century as manufacturing declined nationwide.

The loss of industry was a blow to Fitchburg’s workforce and pride. So, it wasn’t easy when community leaders began their application to participate in what’s now the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Working Places community development program.

“Fitchburg was having trouble believing in itself," said Marc Dohan, executive director of NewVue, a neighborhood development organization.

Changing that required a change in thinking, he said. “We had to really say, ‘Well, what are our assets?’” Dohan said.

The answer to that question became the heart of a Working Places project in Fitchburg: the revitalization of the city’s North of Main neighborhood. The aim is to create a center for arts and culture, where people want to live, work, and visit. By the time the team disbanded in 2017, it had created a $100 million pipeline of new investment opportunities.

On Friday, Boston Fed President and CEO Susan M. Collins and Adriana Kugler, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors in Washington, toured Fitchburg and North of Main and met with community and business leaders to hear their economic concerns.

Kugler told residents the Fed’s job is to support an economy that works for all.

“That is part of the reason why I think it is so critical for those of us who are in Washington D.C. to get out there, to go to different parts of the country, to different regions, to understand the realities that people are living in terms of engaging with the economy,” she said.

Building projects become sign of city’s new outlook

Working Places started as the Working Cities Challenge, and it initially focused on post-industrial cities like Fitchburg, a community of about 42,000 on the Nashua River. The challenge aimed to unite sectors of a city that don’t normally interact to solve a common problem. Winners received a three-year grant to get started.

Working Places participants told Collins and Kugler they eventually determined the city’s biggest asset was an increasingly diverse population, which would attract people who wanted to live in diverse neighborhoods.

They also knew they had real strengths in Fitchburg State University and the 99-year-old Fitchburg Art Museum. But Dohan said they also needed that change in perspective. For instance, instead of seeing narrow, crowded streets, they began to see walkable streets. Vacant, old buildings became charming, historic buildings. The new outlook birthed new ideas – and projects.

A major project was the renovation of the historic 170-year-old city hall. And the old B.F. Brown School – whose roof was destroyed by fire – is being restored and turned into an arts community with affordable apartments. In addition, Fitchburg State bought and plans to renovate the long-dormant Main Street Theater.

Local state Rep. Mike Kushmerek said winning the Working Cities grant was a “galvanizing moment.”

“And I think in some senses it was also the paradigm-shifting mentality of going from viewing things as liabilities to viewing them as assets,” he said.

Businesses facing workforce problems and inflation’s impacts

Of course, the city’s problems haven’t just disappeared. Today, its poverty rate (13.9%) exceeds the statewide rate by about three percentage points, and its median household income ($65,963) is about 34% below the state median.

State Sen. John Cronin said north central Massachusetts struggles to attract the private capital needed to build the market-rate housing that draws young professionals and the middle class.

“My concern … is that I don’t see the workforce getting bigger, especially in the construction trades, which we need,” he said.

Later, in a discussion at the Fitchburg Art Museum, small business owners told Collins and Kugler that people seem to be going out less because of inflation.

“People have less money to spend, rent is higher, everything is high. It’s hard,” said restaurant owner Elmer Melendez of Taco’s Tequila and Dario’s Ristorante.

Bob Lockett, chief strategy officer for Workers Credit Union, advised businesses owners to develop relationships with local financial institutions as early as possible.

“If the first time that you come to financial institution is with a significant need that you are trying to address, it’s more of a challenge then if we’ve been talking for a year or two,” he said.

Child care program creates jobs, enables parents to go to theirs

Collins and Kugler also heard about a local effort to address workforce woes by improving child care access.

The initiative was led by residents Marites MacLean and Beth Robbins, who were part of a Working Places offshoot called Leaders for Equitable Local Economies that trained local leaders to make their economies more racially equitable and inclusive. MacLean and Robbins began a bilingual program that trained 30 residents to open child care centers.

This created new businesses and enabled parents to find the care needed so they can work.

“We were able to bring those pieces of the community that weren’t engaged yet,” Robbins said. “Mostly (a) female, Latina population, that really didn’t have a means to make an income, didn’t have culturally competent child care available to them.”

Kugler said affordable and accessible child care is critical to the U.S. economy.

“We discuss issues of child care in our monetary policy meetings,” she said. “These are things that matter to us. And, as Susan said, not only because we’ve been there, and had to deal with child care issues in our working lives, but because we understand it’s a real challenge for working people.”